I can't stand any of the Bronte, Austen stuff. I need all those foppy men balanced out with more ruggedness.
Okay, first - Bronte and Austen, very different.
Second, Heathcliff.
Re Heathcliff. I guess. He had a rough situation and was rough around the edges, but still described in a swoony, ridiculous way.
The link I posted does spout some differences. Ones I don't discern very well because the genre doesn't appeal to me. I don't need insight to other people's money and class-driven-betrothal woes. Can't (and don't want to) relate.
Re Heathcliff. I guess. He had a rough situation and was rough around the edges, but still described in a swoony, ridiculous way.
The link I posted does spout some differences. Ones I don't discern very well because the genre doesn't appeal to me. I don't need insight to other people's money and class-driven-betrothal woes. Can't (and don't want to) relate.
But the aren't even the same genre! The Bronte sister wrote Gothic novels, and Austen's novels are...not gothic. At all.
I couldn't finish The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, it was too tedious and I felt like the same story just kept repeating itself over and over.
Crime and Punishment was torture to finish, but once it was over I didn't "hate it".
I could never make it through Heart of Darkness or Moby Dick. Although the latter did provide some interesting discussion in one of my classes - the instructor was talking about homoeroticism and no one really had anything to contribute and so the subject changed, leading one student to call the whole class heterosexists. Fun times in lit class!
I love Jane Austen movie adaptations but I don't really like reading her books.
More recently - The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.
Meh, hate all you want, I will always love Pride and Prejudice. I mean, this was a time period were all you really did as a woman was get married. The lead character said no, to TWO MEN! ONE VERY RICH! Get it, gurl!
I couldn't get through A Tale of Two Cities or The Count of Monte Cristo. So bored!
The Count of Monte Cristo is fantastic. Try again.
Maybe I will. I read 1/3 of it before I gave up and Wiki'd the rest (I didn't know the story at all before I started reading because I'm a weirdo who hasn't even seen the movie), so I know it has a great plot and all but holy shit, every time I picked it up it nearly put me to sleep.
Post by CrazyLucky on Jan 29, 2015 10:55:23 GMT -5
Oh, I hated Walden. Sooooo booooring.
I'm really a simpleton with books. I like to read mysteries or spy novels or biographies. I don't like trying to figure out what this symbolizes or that symbolizes. Tale of two Cities was not a fun book for me.
Frankenstein. Maybe because I somehow ended up in a freshman lit class where this one book was discussed for the entire semester with a professor who looked like the crypt keeper. I'm too hung over for this, lady.
I think that's why I liked it. I just couldn't believe the things that were happening. So...I like East of Eden, Of Mice and Men, The Great Gatsby (I think high school kids are too young to get this - and really don't think it should be taught then), The Handmaids Tale, and The Count of Monte Cristo.
But I could not get through Anna Karenina, Out of Africa, or One Hundred Years of Solitude (or for that matter, Love in the Time of Cholera).
Also, I absolutely despised Slaughterhouse V by Kurt Vonnegut. It wasn't a good book and definitely should not be on all the "books you must read before you die" lists.
I haven't read a lot of the expected classics (never read Catcher in the Rye, Of Mice & Men, Moby Dick, Lord of the Flies, etc).
The most atrocious books I recall were Billy Budd, Great Expectations and Gargantua and Pantagruel.
I also had no appreciation for Shakespeare until I actually saw one as a stage play (Taming of the Shrew, I think). I can not read his plays; I swear my brain doesn't process them right.
I haven't read a lot of the expected classics (never read Catcher in the Rye, Of Mice & Men, Moby Dick, Lord of the Flies, etc).
The most atrocious books I recall were Billy Budd, Great Expectations and Gargantua and Pantagruel.
I also had no appreciation for Shakespeare until I actually saw one as a stage play (Taming of the Shrew, I think). I can not read his plays; I swear my brain doesn't process them right.
To be fair, they are meant to be performed not read.
I wonder how much of the hate of some of the books listed are when people read them and, if they read them in school, the teacher that taught the book. I read Romeo and Juliet twice in school because I moved in the middle of 9th grade. Hated it with teacher 1 and loved it with teacher 2.
A seventh grade teacher at my school teaches To Kill a Mockingbird every year and the kids HATE it. They think it is boring, etc. I really think they hate it because they are too young to get it. Like...a 12 year old 'gets' coming to age? The only thing they can kind of grasp is the racism aspect, and even that is a relatively shallow grasp IMO.